Thursday, May 5, 2016

Honors Gala

Let’s talk about another Wednesday that was incredible. The only way I could have successfully gone through the day is if I had 2 twins. In fact, I was supposed to be at three events at the same time, tonight, from 5:30pm to 6:30pm.
First of all, that is the time at which every Wednesday I meet at the Luria Library for the weekly Phi Theta Kappa leadership meeting. Yesterday was the final meeting, aka last meeting of the semester (and the year) before I transfer, and the reason why it is important to be present at this meeting is because the first point on the agenda is: “electing new President and Vice-President.” All the members of the leadership, excluding the current president and the current vice-president, get to express a vote on who should be leading the future leadership team of Phi Theta Kappa. 
If I were there, I would have voted for Sebastian Rothstein, current VP of Service in the leadership board. I have worked with Sebastian in the Economic Club of Santa Barbara, where he has the position of President. He does an outstanding job, because he is extremely dedicated, very clever, and always informed. However, I was not able to make it to this meeting, and therefore I did not get a chance to express my opinion. 
At the meeting, Sebastian received 3 votes, and my friend Adam also received 3. In presence of a tie, the leaders voted once again, and Adam won 8:1. Adam is one of my best friends, and he has served in the leadership board for a whole year (like me) as the VP of Public Relations. He has always done an outstanding job and I am sure he will be a great presidents for the next Phi Theta Kappa leadership. 
I was sorry I missed this meeting, mostly because I love those people and I like to meet them all at least once a week. I knew, however, that we would have gone out for lunch on Friday, so I still had a chance to meet them again. 
At the same time, the event “A voice for the new generation” was happening in room PS-101. This was the last event of the semester organized by our newly-started organization, the Economic Club of Santa Barbara (ECSB). Unfortunately, neither President Sebastian or I were able to attend the meeting, which was mostly organized and carried out by Amanda Mosby, and intelligent and ambitious young woman, who demonstrated great leadership skills in organizing this event through us. Today (Thursday) at the weekly ECSB leadership meeting she applied to become part of the future leadership to replace those of us who will transfer (e.g. myself) and she successfully was accepted as the future VP of Public Relations.
So, if I was not at the PTK meeting, and I was not at the ECSB event, where was I?
On this day, starting at 5 o’ clock, there was another event taking place at school, at Gourmet Dining Room (next to JSB cafe) on East Campus. This is the annual Honors Gala, a celebration of the students who have completed the Honors Program at SBCC. The reception started at 5 with a lot of fancy-dressed people mingling and snacking on some meatballs, salads, fruit, and cookies (and let’s not forget the chocolate-covered strawberries!). 
Around 5:30pm, Dr. Melanie Eckford-Prossor, the Honors Program Director, gave start to the event. Melanie was my English professor on my first semester, and she taught me so much. All Honors students love her, and would agree that she is an amazing woman; she can really make an impact on the life of a student, and she definitely did so with me. I am extremely proud of the many hours spent just thinking about the challenging prompts that she assigned in the English class, as well as the many hours spent typing. 
Anyway, she started the event by welcoming us, congratulating with us, and then calling up Wendy Peters, the awesome Honors Program counselor who has helped me so much throughout my journey at SBCC by developing a great educational plan with me. Wendy informed us that 58 students will earn a certificate for completing the Honors Program this year, which is a record for the Program. She also said that while the acceptance rate from the pool of SBCC students was 23%, the acceptance rate to UCLA from the pool of Honors students was a staggering 71%, which shows the rigor of the students in the program. About 50-60 students have earned 132 degrees this year, and I myself will be earning three, namely Economics, Economics for Transfer, and Liberal Arts. The ceremony continued with the students being “stolen,” term by which we really mean that we were awarded a Honors Program stole to use on commencement. Finally, to wrap up the event, we were offered delicious Tiramisu, homemade with ingredients actually imported from Italy by my friend Matthew Poulin; needless to say, it was delicious.
It was such a great day overall, and I am very proud of my achievements.
A presto,

- Fede

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